Today, I took a page off Toptentopten.com and I point out what’s true, untrue and half-true (common misconceptions in bold and red) .  [I have since pointed out these to the blogger and website owner - hopefully he will go through the information I offered him on his site.]

1. Reducing salt by half in your recipes would not have noticeable change in taste but would help you stay healthy. Using herb, spice, and lemon juice would work well with several dishes.

True! Excess salt is one reason why people get heart-associated ailments. However, do not ignore iodine-supplemented salt. Although iodinized salt is insufficient to cover a whole day’s nutritional requirements, a little of this essential mineral is better than none. Iodine is required in all cells, all tissues, muscles, joints, skin and organs.

Iodine deficiency is most obviously indicated via the human nervous system, although a lack of iodine can also cause a myriad of other problems like cancer and goitre. Nervous symptoms range from dream-like (or drug-like!) stupor, inability to think logically (thus appearing stupid) and eventually lack of direction and control (eg. uncontrollable salivation, feeling of extreme thirst). Due to mis-information about iodine, iodine was stopped in manufacture of white bread and was replaced by a toxic anti-cakeing agent, bromine. Why iodine is essential

2. Making an investment in non-stick pan would help you avoid oil or use low fat cooking spray.

If you’re using coconut oil for cooking, there’s really no fear of over-using or over-consuming cooking oil. In fact, it’s dangerous to use non-stick pans/pots.  In exchange for the convenience of these no-stick utensils, you may actually be ingesting chemicals.

THE TEFLON LIE

Teflon, the chemical found in your non-stick ware, is dangerous to birds.  In fact, Dupont admitted this.  In a press release, DuPont wrote that “significant decomposition of the coating will occur only when temperatures exceed about 660 degrees F (340 degrees C).  These temperatures alone are well above the normal (safe) cooking range.”

Through the common act of preheating a pan that’s set on “high”, cookware and frying skillets  exceeding these temperatures turns toxic.  In cases of “Teflon toxicosis,” as the bird poisonings are called, the lungs of exposed birds hemorrhage and fill with fluid, leading to suffocation.

At least four of the chemicals in this “bird poisoning” never breaks down in the environment (like plastic!)   And some are widely found in human blood via health screenings.  DuPont acknowledges that the fumes can also sicken people, a condition called “polymer fume fever.” -  extracted via Ecomall.com and edited (for clarity) by MyQute

“Numerous of studies have shown that  Teflon causes prostate cancer.” – Dr. Mercola

David Gutierrez, staff writer of NaturalNews.com, “*Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Conspired with DuPont to Allow Teflon Chemicals in Drinking Water.”

Yep, Dupont knew about it for more than 50 years but had kept quiet about it, while cash registers ring for more sales of non-stick pans due to successful TV commercials.

Anyway, Teflon-coated non-stick surfaces fail to brown foods so wouldn’t it be better to consider cookware made of stainless steel or cast iron (heavy though but heat is distributed evenly via cooked food)?

You will also want to avoid cookware made of:
anodized aluminum, linked to Alzheimer’s disease and
Teflon-coated aluminium cookware like the Metal-top Griller ( http://www.questodesign.com/shop/proddetail.php?prod=mona_grill_stadler_form&cat=211 )

I think I appreciate a Teflon-coated IRON more – no more sticking to clothes!   I also give Dupont credit for their fire-repelling (Teflon-coated) uniforms, etc.

3. Steaming your food instead of boiling it would ensure to retain the flavor and color and give the essential nutrients. Use of Chinese bamboo steamer of a good electric steamer would avoid cooking for longer time. By cooking in extended heat and liquid will take away the valuable nutrients.

True! Steaming is indeed the healthiest way to cook foods. The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture determined that vegetables such as broccoli – when steamed – retain most of its nutrients.

You can consider other cooking methods like stir-frying, turbo-broiling and grilling (barbeque) without the use of charcoal. Deep-fried and microwaved foods are usually ranked the unhealthiest way to cook foods.

You will find sites that will oppose this fact (that microwaved foods are DEAD foods) when they say “every cooking method can destroy vitamins and other food nutrients”. Here’s why microwaved foods are what you want to avoid.

Microwaved/Irradiated Foods especially meat, may have the Radura logo on it.  Irradiated foods may also have the words:

• treated with radiation
• treated by irradiation
• cold pasteurized
• electronically pasteurized

Ref: What, where , why and hows of organic

“Going raw” is the only other way of getting your food in its natural nutritional form (without cooking of course).

Vegetarians and chefs like raw food partially because a large number of raw food recipes are quick to prepare and make.  Alissa Cohen, an expert of the raw food diet, has a forum to discuss raw foods (first introduced by esteemed BB member, @CaroleParker)

Read about the man who never fell ill last 15 years due to his raw food meals and other secrets (health tips).

4. Eating vegetables daily would keep you fit. Having a schedule to add vegetables in the form of salads or adding them in the soups would ensure the intake of vegetables. Using vegetable salsas instead of heavy gravies or sauce would also help.

While this is true, you need a variety of both whole vegetables and fruits and you need to exercise on a regular basis. Also, vegetable salsas are also only good if there are no hidden MSG (or other questionable ingredients) in them.

5. Use low fat cheese and skimmed milk in your daily food would help reduce the cholesterol and fat content of baked foods.

Not entirely untrue but children who drink skimmed milk instead of full-cream milk, run a higher risk of severe nutrient deficiency. Some infants have died due to drinking skimmed milk powder formula.

In March 2004, the European Journal of European Nutrition revealed that a high intake of skimmed milk “increased some serum levels in 8 year-old boys”. What this means is that the high growth velocity during early life are associated with the risk of some non-communicable diseases later on in these boys’ lives.

In some websites, full creamed milk is not even recommended to children under 5.  (Clearly a contrast, partially because your child’s milk is really meant for calves, not humans! lol )

Forget soy milk too – it’s rich in phytic acid (a toxic). Phytic acid found in soy bean oils from unfermented soy beans, once absorbed, can prevent nutrients, minerals and enzymes from being absorbed. ”Soybean oil depresses the thyroid–which lowers your energy levels, makes you feel less like exercising, and generally makes you fatter! Partially hydrogenated oils like soybean oil, will not only kill you in the long term by producing diseases like multiple sclerosis and allergies that lead to arthritis, but in the meantime they will make you fat!”

And also, there are also people who are sensitive to this toxic phytic acid and develops severe allergy (anaphylactic shock type).   Read here for more information on soya beans.

Not all beans are the same – some green beans can also kill. Read more in CaroleParker’s blog (and read the comments!)

And why are baked foods usually high in cholesterol? Carcinogenic (over-fried) vegetable oil or margarine (trans-fat) and meat (and sugar) when baked meat = + high carbohydrates + unhealthy fat; this combination makes for a sticky substance that binds to walls of intestines and clog hearts like a clingy girlfriend (only it’s worst!)

6. Replace other oils by Olive oil and try to drain off the fat with the kitchen paper and then eat it. Before reheating the soups make them to chill so that you can skim the fat in the top.

Although heating or cooking with olive oil may largely change its flavour and aroma (because alcohols and esters evaporate), all oils (except for coconut oil) turns carcinogenic. This, certainly, makes cooked olive oil cancer-causing.

Oxidation of these cancer-causing agents can overload the liver to work harder at detoxifying your body. The result may be DNA damage that starts a chain of events leading to cancer.

Cooked olive oil, like other vegetable cooking oils, has been found to contain minute amounts of cancer-causing agents, such as chrysene and benzanthracene. Why should we allow minute traces of carcinogens to affect our health adversely?

In short, olive oil is best used for non-cooking salads or raw dishes.

7. Eating charred food should be avoided, as it would contain cancer-promoting compounds. Microwave cooking is the best choice to cook vegetables due its short cooking time and ensures to retain the nutrient value.

It’s true that charred food should be avoided. However, microwaved foods are no better. Microwave “rays” have radiation, not unlike those used via mammogram machines (another cancer-diagnosis tool you want to avoid).   Please refer here for microwaved food info.

8. Looking for low fat recipes in biscuits and cakes and reduce the fat by choosing applesauce, mashed banana, and yogurt yet getting the required taste with less fat.

While it makes sense to have a low-carbohydrate and “low-fat” diet, apple sauce may be high in sugars and your yohurt may be made from unhealthy milk.  Also, there’s this misconception that all saturated fats are unhealthy.

9. Using whole grain products instead of all-purpose flour will help you add nutrition to your meal. Trying whole-wheat flour, oatmeal in muffins and bread and soy flour in biscuits will be a healthy meal option.

Whole-grain products are much healthier than white wheat (white flour) products.

White flour/bread has toxic alloxan and bromine.

Soy flour, if using unfermented soya beans, have toxic phytic acid.

10. Eating fruit desserts instead of cookies and cakes and eating yogurt sorbet instead of ice cream will be a good habit. Try serving cake with fruit sauce instead of whipped.

Cookies and cakes are mostly made of flour – and at many times, white flour or multi-purpose flour – and sugar.  Flour and sugar are not the most healthy foods on Earth.  Thus it does make sense that fruits are healthier to eat.

Fruit desserts, unless natural and not genetically modified, can be equally unhealthy if they are cooked with baking products that contain hidden toxin like bromate or bromine phosphate – which are common ingredients in cakes, cookies and bread.  Read more about bromate/bromine here.

Fruit sauce, unless home-made with natural organic (uncontaminated) ingredients, may have aspartame (associated with 92 symptoms/ailments including infertility, miscarriages, seizures, brain failure and death) or high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), or both. These substances can makes some commercial brand of fruit sauce unhealthy and dangerous (aspartame is not required by law to be labelled on a food packet and sometimes HFCS is just labelled as “corn syrup”).

Not to mention, a lot of the fruit sauce is boiled devoid (or greatly reduced) of any flavanoids (antioxidants that prevent free radicals from mutating cells).

There’s also your fruit toppings that may not be totally healthy.  For example, some people like to eat  pineapples with soy sauce, and unless soya sauce is made from fermented soya beans, it’s not healthy.  There’s toxic phytic acid in unfermented soya beans and related food products.

Also, some people like to eat kiwi or similar fruits with plum powder.  Although plums (aka prunes) are healthy in its whole natural form without pesticides or herbicides (organic), do you know what’s really INSIDE your plum powder?  Do go for plum powder that come from plums that have been grown and dried without any preservatives, chemicals and additives – go organic!

Whipped cream although made from egg-white and sugar, lacks the enzymes found in egg yolk (egg yolk is the only natural food that has the enzymes to properly digest egg-white). As such, long-term eating of egg-whites without egg-yolks can be dangerous to out well-being.

Moreover, egg yolks contain essential fatty acids, DHA and Arachidonic Acid, required for healthy skin, glossy hair, growth and response to injury, etc.

“Low fat” is also not equivalent to “Low Cholesterol”.  We need SATURATED fats that are really medium-chain fatty acids, like butter.  The truth with your butter, margarine, canola oil, etc.

However, a diet rich in Arachidonic Acid (eggs and meat) contributes to the cycle of pain and inflammation (eg. joint pains, arthritis, pain from musculoskeletal injuries). So eat eggs, meat and whipped cream moderately (or lesser).
A few strawberries topped on an unhealthy food does not make it a health food.  Which brings me back to the question,”Is Fruit Sauce healthier than Whipped cream?”  I have to say,”No, and neither is whipped cream healthier than fruit sauce.”

“Dr. Ravnskov’s book provides solid evidence that supports these and other facts that have me convinced that many doctors don’t have a clue about cholesterol and health. Sadly, conventional guidelines that promote lowering your cholesterol for a healthy heart are influenced in large part by large pharmaceutical companies that are making billions of dollars with cholesterol-lowering medication.” by Dr. Ben Kim on “Are you throwing away your egg yolks?”

RELATED INFO
Step-by-Step scrambled eggs that won’t stick to the pan
Why you needs eggs (2 parts)  – please  note that this link was recommended at the time before I moved from a vegetarian to a vegan
Dupont sent a letter of “copyright warning” to someone who warned that Teflon-coated cookware killed his pet bird, “With regard to allegations that non-stick coatings made with Teflon® or other fluoropolymer coatings maybe harmful to birds, veterinary experts advise keeping pet birds away from cooking and cleaning fumes.”
Microwaved milk damages babies’ brain
How HFCS damages you
Mike Adams’ Soya Bean News
12 Food additives found in food that you should avoid
The healthiest cows’ milk eat grass and are free-ranging without any funny immunizations. Learn more here.
Nitrous Oxide in spray-cans: Stepmother,”“Who wants to suck out the air (from whipped cream) and talk funny?”

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